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THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PUBLIC UTILITY POLICY OF PUBLIC UTILITY POLICY OF WATER, ELECTRIC POWER WATER, ELECTRIC POWER

AND CITY GAS:AND CITY GAS: THE TAIWAN EXPERIENCE THE TAIWAN EXPERIENCE

GEORGE J.Y. HSUDIRECTOR, CENTER FOR INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH

PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS

PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED ECONOMICS

NATIONAL CHUNG HSING UNIVERSITY, TAICHUNG, TAIWAN

2006 .05. 09

Ⅰ. Introduction

A. Role and Importance of the Public Utility

B. Significance of the Public Utility Policy

C. Studied Scope1) The Core Value of Public Utilities

2) Supply Planning of the Public Utility

3) Demand Management of the Public Utility

4) Utility Pricing Policy and Regulation

5) Utility Deregulation Policy

6) Future Perspectives of the Utility Policy

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Ⅱ. The Core Value of Public Utilities

A. Option Demand /Value—a non-use value, a potential value, an external economy

B. Anytime Option—always reliable; instantly available

C. Anywhere Option—all those pipes/wires and meters coverage areas

D. Any Amount Affordable—due to stable tariffs and depend on the consumer’s budget constraint, energy conservation consciousness, lifestyle and weather conditions

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Ⅱ. The Core Value of Public Utilities

E. Outage Cost Very High (Reflecting the Loss of Option Demand and Option Value)

F. Shadow Price (Marginal Utility) Very High During Shortage

G. Shadow Price (Marginal Utility) Close/Equal to Zero When Abundant

H. Marginal Cost Normally Very Low (Reserve Margin Is Very Important)

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Ⅲ. Supply Planning of the Public UtilityA. Attributes of the Utility Supply

1) Natural Monopoly (AC Decreases When Scale Increases), i.e. Economy of Scale

2) Capital-Intensive (e.g. Electric Utility Alone Represents More Than 30% of the Total Capital Formation in Developing Countries)

3) Supply Is Subject to Meet the Needs of Demand (Reserve Margin Needed)

4) Long-term Planning with Significant Lead Time

5) Large Land Requirement (Social Capital Assets Utilized for Piping Networks)

6) Electric Power: Multi-inputs for Producing A Single and Homogeneous Output

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Ⅲ. Supply Planning of the Public Utility

B. Evaluation of the Feasibility of Supply Alternatives1) Technical Feasibility

2) Economic Feasibility

3) Financial Feasibility

4) Environmental Feasibility

5) The General Public’s Acceptance Feasibility

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Ⅲ. Supply Planning of the Public UtilityC. Key Concepts of Public Utility Economics

1) Economic Cost vs. Accounting Cost of Supply Alternatives

2) Economics of Single Alternative vs. Economics of the Whole System vs. Economics of the Nation

3) Optimization (Global Optimization) vs. Simulation (Local Optimization) for Supply Alternatives

4) NPV vs. BCA vs. IRR of Supply Alternatives

5) Environmental Cost and Others External Costs (Direct/Indirect, Plant on-site/off-site, Tangible/Intangible)

6) Benefits Should Be Also Considered

7) Importance of Option Demand and Option Value

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Ⅲ. Supply Planning of the Public Utility

D. Taiwan’s Experience1) Least-Cost Planning Approach

2) Ad hoc Review Committee for Supply Alternatives Selection (e.g. Power Generation Alternatives)

3) Environmental Concerns Highly Increased (e.g. Kyoto Protocol on CO2 Emission and Circulation-type of Resource Uses, and WEEE, RoHS, EUP)

4) Nuclear, Coal-fired and Hydro Power Plants Not Easily Accepted by the Environmentalists and the General Public

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Ⅲ. Supply Planning of the Public Utility

D. Taiwan’s Experience5) Renewable Power Generation Being Promoted by Laws

and Government’s Measures

6) LNG Power Plant Also Exists Problems, e.g. Storage Terminals and Piping Transmission

7) Water Shortages Occasionally Happened and Causes Great Social and Political Concerns

8) 25 City Gas Utility Companies are not Enough Economy-of-Scale

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Ⅳ.Demand Management of the Public Utility

A. Attributes of the Utility Demand1) Collective Consumption

2) Inelasticity of Demand

3) Market Segmentation by Piping (e.g. Voltages or Pressures) and Meters

4) Derived Demand Normally Greater Than Final Demand (e.g. Taiwan’s Experience)

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Ⅳ.Demand Management of the Public Utility

B. Economics of Outage CostB. Importance of Outage Cost

C. Economic Meanings of Outage Cost (Social Cost, Shadow Price and WTP)

D. TC (Total Cost) = SC (Supply Cost) + OC (Outage Cost)

E. Diagram of the Above Equation

F. Types of Outage Cost

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Ⅳ.Demand Management of the Public Utility

C. Demand-Side Management (DSM)1.Economic Meaning of DSM (Industries, Processes, End-

uses; Households, Activities, End-uses)

2.Objectives of DSM

3.Alternatives of DSM (e.g. Electric Power TOU Rate, Seasonal Rate, Interruptible/Curtailable Rate, Direct Rebate, Commercial Advertisement, Education, ESCo. etc.)

4.Evaluation/Selection of DSM Alternatives

5.Enforcement of DSM

6.Evaluation/Adjustment of DSM Program

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Ⅳ.Demand Management of the Public Utility

D. Taiwan’s Experience1) TOU Power Rate

2) Seasonal Power Rate

3) 7 Types of Interruptible/Curtailable Power Rate

4) Air-Conditioning Ice-Cooling Storages and Heat Pumps

5) Significant Amount of Cogeneration

6) Fuel Cells under Promotion

7) ESco Being Encouraged

8) Education and Promotion on Energy/Water Conservation, e.g. Conservation Ideas/Pictures/Figures Printed on the Electricity and Water Bi-Monthly Bills

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A. Impacts and Principles of Utility Pricing1) Impacts of Utility Pricing on Social-Economic

Development① Welfare of the general public

② The development of Rural Areas

③ The competitiveness of Industries

④ The fiscal situation of governments for those state-owned utilities.

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Ⅴ. Utility Pricing Policy and Regulation

A. Impacts and Principles of Utility Pricing2) Principles for Setting Utility Tariffs

① Economic efficiency

② Fairness among consumer groups

③ Fair rate of return for the utility

④ Other social-economic objectives (e.g. discount rates for military, rural or power plant-site consumers).

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Ⅴ. Utility Pricing Policy and Regulation

B. Pricing Models of a Natural Monopolist1) MC = MR (Profit max)

2) MC = P (welfare max)

3) AC = P (fair return)

4) Second Best Pricing (Ramsey pricing)(Cost-plus Pricing)

5) “Price-cap” Method

6) Most Utility Policies Adopt “Cost-plus” Regulatory Scheme

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Ⅴ. Utility Pricing Policy and Regulation

C. Problems of Cost-Plus Pricing1) Allocative Inefficiency (MC not equal to P)

2) Technical Inefficiency (eg. A-J Effect)

3) X-inefficiency

4) Moral Hazard

5) Adverse Selection

6) Incentive Compatibility Needed

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Ⅴ. Utility Pricing Policy and Regulation

D. Utility Tariffs in Practice Industrial Users

1) Two-Part Tariff① Capacity charge (and customer charge)

② Flow charge

③ Peak-load vs. off peak-load pricing (time of use; TOU)

2) Residential Users① Single charge

② Accumulated increasing block rates (for conservation and “distributive justice” of the low income groups)

3) Interruptible and curtailable rates for specific users

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Ⅴ. Utility Pricing Policy and Regulation

E. Taiwan Experience1) Cost-plus Regulation

① Administrative control and implemented measures by MOEA

② “Prudent review” procedures

③ “Used and useful” accounting principle

④ Accumulated increasing block rates of electric utility supply

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Ⅴ. Utility Pricing Policy and Regulation

E. Taiwan Experience2) Examples of Electric Utility Policy

① IPP

② Cogeneration

③ Renewable power generation

④ Deregulation: ISO, PX, and three majors markets, including whole sale generation power market, transmission congestion management market, ancillary services (12 kinds) market.

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Ⅴ. Utility Pricing Policy and Regulation

Ⅵ. Utility Deregulation Policy

A. Problems of Regulation 1) Regulation Deprivation

2) Regulation Captive

3) Regulation Misleading① Due to the long “lead-time” with unforeseeable future

and causing over-supply or under-supply of the utility capacity

② Due to the political or non-professional intervenes

4) Captive Customers Shouldering All Investment Risks and Costs

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Ⅵ. Utility Deregulation Policy

B. “Digital Revolution” Accelerating the Pace of Deregulation 1) Internal and External Information/Transaction

Cost Down Significantly

2) “Unbundling” the Value-Chain of the Utility Supply Industry

3) Segmenting the Market Components between Contestable Ones and Monopoly Ones

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Ⅵ. Utility Deregulation Policy

B. “Digital Revolution” Accelerating the Pace of Deregulation 4) Competition Mechanism for the Market

Components with Contestability Attribute(No More Price and Quantity Regulation, and Focusing on “Fair Trade” Regulation)

5) Government’s Price and Quantity Regulation on the Market Components with Natural Monopoly Attribute(the Network of Transmission and Distribution)

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Ⅶ. Future Perspectives of the Utility Policy

A. The Trend of Market Liberalization Policy Is the Mainstream: Every Economy Is Pursuing the Maximum Efficiency

B. From Supply-oriented to DSM in Regulated Market

C. From Supply-oriented to Demand Response in Deregulated Market

D. From State-owned to Privatization

E. From Economy-of-Scale to Economy-of-Scope

F. From Capital-intensive to Knowledge-Intensive

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Ⅶ. Future Perspectives of the Utility Policy

G. The Rise of Soft-path Resolution(e.g. Renewable Energy) for Environmental Protection

H. The Circulation-type of Resource Uses Due to International Environmental Protocols/Directives(Kyoto, WEEE, RoHS, EUP)

I. The Rise of Distributive Utilities and Multi-Utilities for More Option Demand/Value

J. The Need of A Better Integrated Policy Planning, Enforcement and Evaluation(e.g. SCM &CRM Implementation, ex ante and ex post BCA, and the General Public Communication) for More Satisfaction of the Consumers

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THANK YOU!